MarginNote Mines Text for Gold

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A book and pen don’t even come close to the sheer studying powertool that is MarginNote. Packed with everything you could possibly need to record, remember, and iterate on thoughts, you may find yourself studying the app itself before hitting the ebooks. It may look overwhelming at first, but it doesn’t take long to become a MarginNote pro.

Dip your toes or sink deep into text

MarginNote isn’t one, it’s two-sizes-fit-all. Two top-down modes methodize text consumption and interaction: Document and Study. Document makes the first read-through expedient and pulls initial thoughts into the margins. Study mode is perfect for a deeper exploration of the text, unearthing and recording the essence of a topic.

Annotate your own way

Everyone takes notes in the way that’s most effective to them. No page looks the same to another set of eyes, and MarginNote knows that. Note layouts are completely unique to the user.

Margin Notes

Go side-by-side for an equal view of content and personal remarks. This is one of the most seamless displays for uninterrupted reading of both yours and the author’s thoughts.

Card Notes

Picture magic sticky notes. This display method pops a note onto highlighted text and hides it when you move to the next. It squirrels away bits of memory for when you want to see them, uncluttering the content itself.

MindMap Creation

This mode gets a little nuts. It gathers notes into a cross section of the text based on its Table of Contents, showing what is perhaps closest to your actual thought process while reading the text. It’s fully editable via drag-and-drop.

An obviously cool reason

To use MarginNote is OCR, which actually stands for Optical Character Recognition. It takes words baked into a PDF and turns them into highlightable, interactable, copyable, pastable, editable (but not edible) text.

With OCR’d text, you can transform notes into flashcards that incorporate Wikipedia snippets, Google Translate results, and other web-based resources.

The big leagues

Once you’ve played around with the fundamental features, there’s more to explore. Linking notes within documents can expand out into linking documents themselves, creating an infinite web of your own ideas. Experiment with adding external frameworks, exporting to multiple sharable and archivable formats, and managing notes via an advanced tagging system.

Through it all, MarginNote has your back. It syncs flawlessly with iCloud for cross-platform note taking. Accidentally trashed items are recoverable. Focus mode keeps your eye on the prize — turning current content into all-new creations.

The best way to get started is to jump right in. Get a little messy. It takes some time to lasso the mind, but this app certainly makes it less daunting. Once you’ve learned the ropes, no ebook or PDF will pose a challenge to parse out. Enjoy.